Y. 
ON LOCAL SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION IN CONNECTION WITH 
COMMITTEES OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 
By John Hopkinson, F.L.S., E.G.S., E.R.Met.Soc. 
Head at St. Albans , 16 th April , 1890. 
I. The Beitish Association and Peoyincial Societies. 
The British Association for the Advancement of Science is in 
several ways closely connected with many of the provincial scientific 
societies of Britain. Its annual meetings being held at different 
places, the societies located in each town in which it meets con¬ 
tribute the principal local scientific element and largely influence 
their success, while these societies gain by the stimulus which the 
meetings of the Association give to scientific investigation in their 
neighbourhood. This mutual benefit is recognised in a rule of 
the Association which admits, as members of its General Com¬ 
mittee, delegates from certain provincial scientific societies. This 
rule has been revised from time to time. In 1879 and for some 
time previously it admitted the President of any scientific society 
publishing Transactions, or in his absence a delegate representing 
him. Therefore if the President of any such society were present 
at the meeting, for however short a time, there was no option but 
to appoint him as its delegate. 
At the meeting of the Association at Sheffield in that year, with 
the object of making the rule of more value to the societies repre¬ 
sented than it had hitherto been, I suggested to the Council of the 
Association the admission, as a member of the General Committee, 
of the Secretary of any duly qualified society as well as the 
President. The Secretaries having as a rule almost the entire 
management of these societies, I thought that it might be bene¬ 
ficial to the societies for a Conference of their Secretaries to be 
held at each annual meeting of the Association, and that, as the 
names of the “ Delegates ” are prefixed to the list of members of the 
Association issued at each meeting, such an alteration in the rule 
might be the best means of enabling this idea to be carried out. 
The suggestion was favourably received by the Council of the 
Association, a new rule embodying it was passed by the General 
Committee, and the first Conference of Delegates was held at 
Swansea in the following year. 
The first five annual Conferences were not officially recognised 
by the Association, and as reports of them were consequently 
published only in an ephemeral form, I append a brief epitome of 
the proceedings (Appendix I, p. 45) showing the origin and progress 
of a movement which has done much to direct the efforts of our 
provincial societies into useful channels, to bring together in social 
intercourse their most active members (usually their Secretaries or 
other officers), and to cement their union with the British Asso¬ 
ciation. With this movement several members of our own Society 
